Devlog "Weekly Game Jame #156"

Weekly Game Jam #156 - Russian Noodlette

Day 1: I missed day one (Friday) because I thought I didn't have any time to work on another game jam for the coming week.

Day 2: Out of curiosity, I checked out the theme, and it was such a weird but intriguing theme ("NOODLE") that I had to join the gam. So, Saturday morning was all about brain storming. I came up with the following interpretation:

"You are lost in Siberia, somewhere in the middle of nowhere; it is cold, you are freezing and almost starving. You should have arrived at your grandmother's house several hours ago, but you somehow made the wrong turn and ended up lost in the wilderness. Right before you think you just lay down and accept your fade, you see a Noodle Club Restaurant. A miracle. You enter the Noodle Club, a terribly run down place, to warm up and have a sip of noodle soup. Not knowing that this Noodle Club Restaurant is the Russian Mafia HQ; where they bring in business partners for a noodle soup, which is poisend, so they can take their money and get rid of the business partners. You of course don't know that the noodle soup is lethal; how long will you sip until you stop and it is too late?"

The game is a bit of a Russian Roulette interpretation; but instead of a gun, you have to deal with a toxic soup. You can press a button to eat, and a button to stop eating. If you stretch it too far, you are dead; if you manage to stretch your luck to the last possible sip, you win; 

Hence the name "Russian Noddlette", a mixture of Russian Roulette and Noodles; why does it take place in Siberia? No idea, what do I know about Russia? Nothing. Does it stop me from doing this theme? Absolutely not. Oh and I am quite sure that I want a painting of Putin riding the Bear halfnaked in my Noodle Restaurant.

I used MagicaVoxel (because the "So Bad, It's Good Jam" really sparked my interest in Voxel Art) and after around 6 hours I ended up with this Noodle Club Restaurant:

Admittedly, it does look a bit more like a night club or a prison. But that is what I imagine a dangerous, Russian mafia Noodle Restaurant in Siberia to look like - apologies for my ignorance.

Day 3: I've spend the morning finetuning the interior design and adding a bit of a color accent to the exterior. It was a bit too blunt and grey, so now it looks much nicer. I also added an idle animation for the player and an eating animation. This is what it looks like after the re-work:

Day 4: Sadly, I got no work done on Monday, because I am in the middle of major relocation work (packing boxes, being stressed about planning the move, etc.).

Day 5: I added a bit of music; it is no master piece, but I think it does sound dark and twisty enough to make the player think about a sad, dark world full of mafia bosses that are trying to kill you :) I really like the "Sion Drumkit" in BoscaCeoil and the "Metal Lead3". The one thing I really hate at the moment is the entire UI; I feel like someone with nice pixel art skills could make amazing buttons. At the moment I have the standard unity buttons, and they are atrocious. I also decided to not use a standard static menu; instead the game starts with a "cut scene" where you see the character walk towards to Noodle Restaurant, the camera pans to the left and you see the noodle sign and the shabby place. 

What went well, what didn't go well:

• Considering that I am in the middle of moving and finished the game with 50% of time left, it is an accomplishment regardless of the outcome
• I am fairly impressed by my exterior design of the house; it does look nice, and I believe with a bit more work and effects (nice skybox, rain effect, a car out on the parking lot, etc) it is a good first VoxelArt house
• I am really happy about my creative interpretation of the theme; I chose a simple yet fun mechanic. The one thing I didn't like is that there is no need for players to play several times; an online scoreboard would be an excellent addition if I had more time invested (I always wanted to learn how to do online leader board)
• I got more used to Mixamo and embedding triggers to control my animations - good job!
• The music is not horrible, I'd give it a solid 3/5, considering that I've spend 45min on the music; it does reflect the dark mafia-type vibes
• While I really like the idea of adding Putin riding on the bear image, the rest of the interior decoration is atrocious; I just cannot apply the same level of detail that I use for the exterior for the interior. It just doesn't look good at all. No idea how to get better at that one...
• I feel like the UI is also a constant weekness in my games; I admire peope that have unique pixel art buttons and nice overlays; I always use the same old standard UI elements. For this game, a pixelart style for the buttons might have been great. Also, initially I wanted a menu where you could choose 3 different types of noodles for the 3 different difficulties; that would have been nice to have a pixelart food menu - but no skill, no pixelart :(
• Coding: I did the entire core mechanic in just an hour. I can proudly say, that I code a russian roulette mechanic in my sleep! #NoTutorialNeeded
• Small victory: For some reasons, webGL builds never worked in the past jams. Now it worked! Though I don't know why the colors and lighing are weird, but that is ok for a scrub like me :)

I don't think this will land in the top 50% of game submissions, but I have now done 6 finished game jams in the 6 months that I started GameDev!